U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were both in desperate need of a foreign policy win. Now they have one.
On Thursday, the United States, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates issued a joint statement announcing that they had reached an agreement to normalize UAE-Israeli relations and that Israel, as a result, had agreed to suspend its process of “extending sovereignty” over large parts of the West Bank that the Trump administration had assigned to Israel under it’s so-called “Vision for Peace.”
While this is an important development, it is less than it might seem on the surface. The UAE and Israel have had a clandestine relationship for many years. Establishing diplomatic ties is a big step forward, but it’s not a “peace agreement” as some have called it since the two countries have never been at war.
Israel’s agreement to suspend annexation is also overstated. No formal annexation process had ever actually started, but de facto annexation through settlement expansion, Israeli-only roads in the West Bank, the security barrier and other measures has been ongoing for more than half a century. Netanyahu, ever the master manipulator, can now continue that process with the UAE’s imprimatur in exchange for stopping a more formal process he never did more than talk about and which the Trump administration never endorsed.
The UAE, which has been trying in recent years to assert itself as a regional power, took a huge step forward in that regard. They will now work more closely with the U.S. and Israel on regional issues, such as opposition to Iran. With Saudi Arabia bogged down in Yemen, and increasingly unpopular in the United States, the UAE hopes to enhance its position as a military asset in the region.
The Emiratis, however, are also assuming the most risk by far of the three parties. There is little downside to any of this for the United States and Israel, but the UAE could face severe backlash in the Arab world. This move effectively abandons the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which held out the offer of full normalization with the entire Arab League if Israel would end its occupation of the Palestinians.
That risk is why Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Zayed, often referred to as MBZ, was much more muted in his tweet announcing the deal than Netanyahu and Trump were. While Netanyahu called the day “historic” and Trump heralded a “HUGE breakthrough,” MBZ tweeted, much more modestly, that “an agreement was reached to stop further Israeli annexation of Palestinian territories. The UAE and Israel also agreed to cooperation and setting a roadmap towards establishing a bilateral relationship.”
The crown prince was clearly leaving himself a back door should the heat get too intense. As the joint statement pointed out, nothing is finalized yet. “Delegations from Israel and the United Arab Emirates will meet in the coming weeks to sign bilateral agreements regarding investment, tourism, direct flights, security, telecommunications, technology, energy, healthcare, culture, the environment, the establishment of reciprocal embassies, and other areas of mutual benefit,” it read.
So the agreement could be derailed as those details are hammered out, but the joint statement commits all the parties to the goal of full diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE, and MBZ surely knows there will be a major political cost if he backs out, especially with the U.S. election looming.
The effects on Israel and the Palestinians
This is a key move for Netanyahu. It explains why he was not pushing the Trump administration harder on annexation, a key demand of his right flank. While the U.S. dragged its feet on the subject, Netanyahu faced growing pressure to defy Washington and move ahead. Yet he stayed largely silent, only occasionally complaining about U.S. inaction, and doing nothing to mobilize his supporters in the United States to help or to counter the anti-annexation narrative that swept over most of the country. Now we know why.
While the agreement with the UAE is unlikely to stop protests in Israel demanding his resignation, Netanyahu has given the Israeli center something it very much wants: increased normalization with the Arab world without connecting that process to an agreement with the Palestinians. That will be important for his chances if elections are called, which is a distinct possibility.
While the settler movement will not be pleased at abandoning the push for formally annexing parts of the West Bank, that anger will be blunted a bit by strengthening the anti-Iran coalition and opening more space for Israel to be active in it. And, even if they remain angry, the centrist support Netanyahu can expect will outweigh right wing anger.
One of the leading Palestinian figures, Hanan Ashrawi, tweeted “Israel got rewarded for not declaring openly what it's been doing to Palestine illegally & persistently since the beginning of the occupation. The UAE has come out in the open on its secret dealings/normalization with Israel. Please don't do us a favor. We are nobody's fig leaf!”
The Palestinian position is seriously undermined by this development. Israel, with strong U.S. support, is proving that they can have normal relations with the oil-rich Gulf states without ending or even easing their occupation in any way. While the Arab populace continues to support the Palestinian cause, Gulf Arab leadership recognizes that they can get away with warming relations. Moreover, Israel’s efforts to annex parts of the West Bank had threatened to de-stabilize Jordan, a concern raised in many corners. Now that is off the table and, while there may be anger at the price. It will not be a threat to the Jordanian kingdom’s continued existence.
All of that diminishes the miniscule leverage the Palestinians already have, and it makes diplomatic options less viable.
Increased militarism
Opening diplomatic relations, as a rule, helps support regional peace and diplomacy. But the circumstances and motivations matter, and in this case, it may well have the opposite effect.
The Trump administration is trumpeting a variety of benefits, but for their strategic purposes, opening opportunities for Israel to work more directly with the UAE against Iran is a key feature. That doesn’t help promote diplomacy in the Gulf region while Trump is in control. Should a future administration decide to shift toward a full commitment to diplomacy with Iran, however, it could provide greater contrast with the current militaristic approach, perhaps making diplomacy more attractive to Iran.
But increasing Israel’s sense that its occupation of the Palestinians bears little cost makes diplomacy less viable for Palestinians and their supporters. Some countries, such as Turkey and Qatar, will likely move to identify themselves as the leaders in supporting the Palestinian cause, but that will do little to improve Palestinians’ ability to assert their claims diplomatically. The more certain Israel is that it can get the ties with the Arab world it covets without ending its occupation, the less incentive it has to do so.
In the long run, Israel’s ongoing occupation and resistance to reaching a settlement that grants Palestinians their full and equal rights reinforces regional instability. This latest development puts more obstacles in the path of diplomacy, and eventually, that cannot lead to anything but violence.
![Following a largely preordained election, Vladimir Putin was sworn in last week for another six-year term as president of Russia. Putin’s victory has, of course, been met with accusations of fraud and political interference, factors that help explain his 87.3% vote share. If this continuation of Putin’s 24-year-long hold on power makes one thing clear, it’s that he and his regime will not be going anywhere for the foreseeable future. But, as his war in Ukraine continues with no clear end in sight, what is less clear is how Washington plans to deal with this reality. Experts say Washington needs to start projecting a long-term strategy toward Russia and its war in Ukraine, wielding its political leverage to apply pressure on Putin and push for more diplomacy aimed at ending the conflict. Only by looking beyond short-term solutions can Washington realistically move the needle in Ukraine. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, the U.S. has focused on getting aid to Ukraine to help it win back all of its pre-2014 territory, a goal complicated by Kyiv’s systemic shortages of munitions and manpower. But that response neglects a more strategic approach to the war, according to Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who spoke in a recent panel hosted by Carnegie. “There is a vortex of emergency planning that people have been, unfortunately, sucked into for the better part of two years since the intelligence first arrived in the fall of 2021,” Weiss said. “And so the urgent crowds out the strategic.” Historian Stephen Kotkin, for his part, says preserving Ukraine’s sovereignty is critical. However, the apparent focus on regaining territory, pushed by the U.S., is misguided. “Wars are never about regaining territory. It's about the capacity to fight and the will to fight. And if Russia has the capacity to fight and Ukraine takes back territory, Russia won't stop fighting,” Kotkin said in a podcast on the Wall Street Journal. And it appears Russia does have the capacity. The number of troops and weapons at Russia’s disposal far exceeds Ukraine’s, and Russian leaders spend twice as much on defense as their Ukrainian counterparts. Ukraine will need a continuous supply of aid from the West to continue to match up to Russia. And while aid to Ukraine is important, Kotkin says, so is a clear plan for determining the preferred outcome of the war. The U.S. may be better served by using the significant political leverage it has over Russia to shape a long-term outcome in its favor. George Beebe of the Quincy Institute, which publishes Responsible Statecraft, says that Russia’s primary concerns and interests do not end with Ukraine. Moscow is fundamentally concerned about the NATO alliance and the threat it may pose to Russian internal stability. Negotiations and dialogue about the bounds and limits of NATO and Russia’s powers, therefore, are critical to the broader conflict. This is a process that is not possible without the U.S. and Europe. “That means by definition, we have some leverage,” Beebe says. To this point, Kotkin says the strength of the U.S. and its allies lies in their political influence — where they are much more powerful than Russia — rather than on the battlefield. Leveraging this influence will be a necessary tool in reaching an agreement that is favorable to the West’s interests, “one that protects the United States, protects its allies in Europe, that preserves an independent Ukraine, but also respects Russia's core security interests there.” In Kotkin’s view, this would mean pushing for an armistice that ends the fighting on the ground and preserves Ukrainian sovereignty, meaning not legally acknowledging Russia’s possession of the territory they have taken during the war. Then, negotiations can proceed. Beebe adds that a treaty on how conventional forces can be used in Europe will be important, one that establishes limits on where and how militaries can be deployed. “[Russia] need[s] some understanding with the West about what we're all going to agree to rule out in terms of interference in the other's domestic affairs,” Beebe said. Critical to these objectives is dialogue with Putin, which Beebe says Washington has not done enough to facilitate. U.S. officials have stated publicly that they do not plan to meet with Putin. The U.S. rejected Putin’s most statements of his willingness to negotiate, which he expressed in an interview with Tucker Carlson in February, citing skepticism that Putin has any genuine intentions of ending the war. “Despite Mr. Putin’s words, we have seen no actions to indicate he is interested in ending this war. If he was, he would pull back his forces and stop his ceaseless attacks on Ukraine,” a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council said in response. But neither side has been open to serious communication. Biden and Putin haven’t met to engage in meaningful talks about the war since it began, their last meeting taking place before the war began in the summer of 2021 in Geneva. Weiss says the U.S. should make it clear that those lines of communication are open. “Any strategy that involves diplomatic outreach also has to be sort of undergirded by serious resolve and a sense that we're not we're not going anywhere,” Weiss said. An end to the war will be critical to long-term global stability. Russia will remain a significant player on the world stage, Beebe explains, considering it is the world’s largest nuclear power and a leading energy producer. It is therefore ultimately in the U.S. and Europe’s interests to reach a relationship “that combines competitive and cooperative elements, and where we find a way to manage our differences and make sure that they don't spiral into very dangerous military confrontation,” he says. As two major global superpowers, the U.S. and Russia need to find a way to share the world. Only genuine, long-term planning can ensure that Washington will be able to shape that future in its best interests.](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/media-library/following-a-largely-preordained-election-vladimir-putin-was-sworn-in-last-week-for-another-six-year-term-as-president-of-russia.jpg?id=34283894&width=1245&height=700&quality=90&coordinates=0%2C77%2C0%2C77)
